TGIF, baby

I slept in this morning - way too late. I usually get up between 5 and 5:30 a.m., but at some point I must've attempted to reset my alarm, but forgot to turn it on in my sleep-dazed state. So I woke up at 6:09 instead. I should be grateful for the extra sleep, but I felt buzzy and weird from the rush. That "oh, shit!" moment, followed by a frantic five-minute shower and subsequent "getting ready for the day" activities, going in to wake my son only to realize much to my relief that he was already awake, and my daughter woke soon after.

My reaction to sleeping in demonstrated how thoroughly my workplace has warped my brain. My thought process started normally, them promptly shifted into root cause, impact, fix, prevention:

1. Holy monkeys, I slept in more than an hour! Need to hurry! Shower! 
2. Shower done, clothes on - only 6:22 - wake kids! There's still time to fix this with limited impact!
3. Sweet, kids are awake. Why the heck aren't they dressed? Get them dressed get them dressed get them dressed.
4. Feed kids, make lunch, get kids to check backpacks, kids need to brush, put on shoes, get them the heck outta the house.
5. (And here's where my brain went south) Hmmm, is there any way to identify a history of my alarm-resetting activities so I can identify what happened and figure out if this is a pattern? I don't usually do this, but when I did last, what were the circumstances?
6. Hmmm, that's right - I've had the same clock since college. It won't give me a history of inappropriate sleeping in, so I'll have to rely on anecdotal evidence. Dammit. 
7. If it won't give me a history of sleeping in inappropriately, what will? How can I prevent this in the future, and what would the impact be if I did it again?
8. Maybe I should go to bed early or set my alarm later to prevent this. 
9. Time for an action plan. 

I told a friend at work and she told me I needed a vacation. I concur. I'm so glad it's Friday. And my wedding anniversary to boot - 11 years of wedded bliss. Hooray!

Testing is hard

I'm writing test scenarios for a product I own, and I've developed a newfound respect for the people who had this as part of their job description before me. Our previous product development and management model had been that we would read the law or subregulatory guidance, tell IT what to do and IT would do it and tell us how they recommended testing it based on the requirements we gave. Someone else would handle any resulting operational processes. It resulted in a lot of miscommunication and annoyances, but had no idea how good I had it.

Our new model is end-to-end product ownership. In other words, I have to read the law, tell IT what the law says, IT codes it, I tell them how to test it, I approve the results, I put in the operational processes and figure out how to report out afterward and make sure we're actually doing what we said we'd do. I also manage congressional complaints, discussions with the federal government and other fun. In other words, if something gets screwed up, the only person I've got to blame is myself unless IT jacks with the code.

On the upside, I'm forced to actually read what I told IT to do because I have to cross reference all my requirements to make sure they're tested. It makes me identify potentially missed requirements, requirements that need tweaking, items that may have changed, etc. And it makes me respect IT more.

The project I'm putting in place is large - very, very, very large. It's a massive industry change from the way we've been doing things so far and I've written nearly 100 test scenarios on logic in our system alone and I haven't even gotten to the hierarchies and data part yet, let alone putting together the operational processes I will then need to support and monitor on top of my other responsibilities.

Hats off to you, IT and ops. You guys are rock stars. And I'm the poor schlub trying to fill your shoes.

Goodnight, Vienna, city of a million something somethings.

Sorry - I've got a terrible earworm today, but I guess it's better than Shake It Off. Now that was a rough day.

I am working from home again. Sometimes I wish I could work from home permanently (and I know my boss wouldn't care); then I work from home and blog from my kitchen while listening to another interminable industry call. Probably not super awesome. That said, these calls waste a ton of time. Instead of industry intel, I learn more about people than actual requirements. One thing I've learned from these calls: everyone - and I mean everyone - wants to sound smart.

Which is totally understandable. I want to sound smart, too. I'm guilty of "smart talk" on occasion when I'm feeling defensive, which I consider to be a huge flaw. But lots of people use smart talk all the time. What is smart talk? Trying to sound smart by nitpicking (oh, Sharon - clearly you've forgotten scope of practice and its relationship to deceased prescribers! Uh, there should be no scope of practice if the prescriber is dead. Just sayin'.), asking pointed, dickish questions and/or quoting obscure pieces of legislation having little to nothing to do with the actual subject at hand. That's smart talk.

Congratulations - you're very smart because you know the DHS requirement regarding unlawfully present individuals. That doesn't have much to do with a prescriber unless he or she is also unlawfully present, but I suppose if you're trying to feel smart, that's probably beside the point.

The crappy thing about smart talk: it actually works. People are frequently insecure enough in their own opinions that if someone smart talks confidently enough and won't back down, it makes others question themselves and defer. Which sucks, especially if you're like me and constantly questioning your intelligence and knowledge, thinking you couldn't possibly know enough and always needing to know more. I wonder when I'll stop feeling like that.

For that matter, I wonder if I should ever stop feeling like the village idiot - isn't thinking you know everything a big sign of arrogance and a hallmark of someone who is no longer curious, who will no longer learn? Whatever - this post has gotten way more philosophical than I anticipated. Time to get more coffee and read more law and ignore more smart talk. Goodnight, Vienna.

So...Cranky....

I'm going to complain. Just so you know, if you don't want to hear it, stop reading.

1. I cheated yesterday evening on being vegan and now I want to die. Just two weeks and apparently having two mouthfuls of cheese means my stomach is going to scream at me. All night and all day.

2. I cannot get information into my brain and churn it quickly enough. This ticks me off. I have a stack of legislation to read. Well, not that high - about 257 pages (should take a few hours) - but I hate, hate, hate that I read it, absorb it and then when I'm pulling together the physical impact of that legislation I don't know enough about the guts of our system to translate it to detailed impact. I. Hate. That. Of course, I didn't build the damn thing. But still...I don't like to wait. I need the knowledge now. If I could, I'd take every process flow, every book, law, newspaper and periodical and website, learn every flipping language possible and just cram it the heck into my head and process the hell out of everything.

3. Regardless of the gurgling of my stomach, I still "get" to take two kids to two baseball games because the tournament that was supposed to start yesterday instead started today thanks to wet fields. So now instead of one game starting at 8, we get to go to two games, one at 5:30 (which is a delightful time for a working parent) and another at 8. Dammit, can't they play in mud?

4. People are assholes.

5. They're also not dead and keep ensuring I know that.

6. They also will not. stop. scheduling. meetings. I hate meetings. "Let's chat on the phone." Um, no, let's not. Especially if you're dead.

7. I can't think a full thought without being interrupted, which makes me want to punch someone or something. But I can't remember who or what I want to punch, so I don't get to do that.

8. I don't feel like being an adult today. Honestly, I'm done - instead of working, then shuttling people to and from baseball games while trying to figure out how to feed everybody, what to take and when, I want to go for a run around my neighborhood, get all sweaty, shower, sit on the couch and eat ice cream (it'll have to be vegan, I guess - see #1) then sleep until noon tomorrow. Then I want to get up, spend oodles of time with my husband without disruption, then shower, nap and do it all over again.

Oh, well. To balance things out, there's got to be a bright side, right? So, here goes - as many good thoughts as there are bad:

1. It is Friday, thank goodness.

2. It's beautiful outside. Even if it were pouring, that wouldn't change the fact that everything is green and purply from spring.

3. The people calling me are not dead, so that's good (better if they would stop calling me).

4.  At least the last baseball game will end at 9:30 and not start at 10 or something ridiculous.

5. My pants are looser.

6. I get to sleep in tomorrow until at least 6:30 a.m.

7. I got to come back home and continue working here because of said upset stomach (telecommute policies = awesome compensation for stupid long hours).

8. I get to go to the library tomorrow. I love the library! I just need to know what I want before I go - I get so overwhelmed when we go. I want to take everything home.

Week of the weird

Everyone has one - an odd week where things happen that are a little off. Yesterday I got calls from three different people to inform me that they were not, in fact, dead. The day before that, a large line of cars was stuck on an exit to the highway to accommodate a rather large wild turkey that had decided to hang out in the middle of the road, gobbling at the honking cars. This morning was a little weird because there was a large herd of deer having an orgy in the backyard.

I'm ready for this week to be over. Things should calm down, people should chill out and stop calling to tell me they're not dead. The deer doing it in the backyard are fine (it wasn't people, so that's good). So is the turkey (didn't want to go to that meeting on time anyway), but having a day, a morning, an hour when something strange or escalated isn't happening would be nice.

Hopefully I'll get time to read later on. I've got 300+ pages of legislation to read and not much time to read it in. I'm sure I'll get it done. As long as I don't get attacked by a wild turkey.

My blog as a movie character

I was thinking, which is dangerous because doing that hurts my head and makes me appear a bit like a mad scientist when I decide to execute on an idea. Which is cool, because I've got wild curly hair as it is. It lends itself well.

But, I was thinking nonetheless, that if my blog were a movie character, hiddenchicken would be the female version of Bob Destepello from Gross Pointe Blank. It's not that I'm particularly aggressive, but the scene where he reads John Cusack's character his "poem" resonates with me on an almost uncomfortable level.

Primarily because I'm here, in my kitchen, producing random glurge that people are nice enough to read, but they'd probably really like me to skip to the end. I feel that way all the time at work. "Dammit, man - what is the POINT?"

The point is, I don't actually have one. That, my friend, is my secret.

So that's that. Yet you stay with me anyway for whatever reason. Maybe you want to spam me and use me as a way to get others to read your blog. Maybe I entertain you with my bumbling attempts through life. Or perhaps you're looking for more information on looking up women's sundresses or Benedict Cumberbatch (apparently someone may a lifesized chocolate statue of him...no, really).

My most common search terms, by the way, are related to heat rash and looking up sundresses, which leads me to believe that people might be getting chafed from attempting to look at panties in the summer. You really need to stop that, by the way, or at least try Runner's Lube or Body Glide.

Well, I'm going to peace out - I'm technically working, but with Good Friday, most people are out or not paying attention, which is nice for a change.

The April Fool

I am an over-competitive idiot. Over the weekend I entered into a bet with my husband that I could go vegan for a month. After all, we've been primarily vegetarian (flexitarian now, right?) for nearly 5 years. On the face of it, it's a really sound decision. More produce, something we all need. And no animal products means I can't eat cookies, which are my kryptonite. It also means I can't eat most commercially made bread, drench things in cheese (I still refuse to try vegan cheese - it seems wrong somehow) and I can't use whole cream in my coffee. As such, I've already lost 3 pounds, which is awesome.

And honestly, except for a few moments of weakness - this morning I caught myself staring at my kids' eggs and plotting to scarf them down after my husband left with them for school/work - it hasn't been much of a hardship. Oh, and for what it's worth, I managed to distract myself with quinoa, spinach and cashews.

BUT...

• After researching to figure out the best way to do this, I do have concerns, B12 deficiency being top on my mind. From what I've read, more than 90% of vegans have or develop a B12 deficiency. If I had a normally-wired brain, this might be solved - emphasis on "might" since scientists disagree with the notion that a pill will get you the nutrients you need - with a tablet. Sadly, B12 vitamins, being unregulated and often misused, are notorious for making your body over-metabolize certain medications, anticonvulsants included. It takes a while to develop a B12 deficiency, so I'm willing to stick it out (see above re over-competitive idiot), but this is not going to be a long-term lifestyle choice for me.
• Logistically speaking, it's a pain in the ass. Unless I want my kids' diet to suffer - and I don't think it's appropriate for my kids to be vegan until their bodies are grown and they can make that choice themselves - I have to make two dishes for every meal: one with meat or animal protein and another devoid of animal products. My kitchen looks like every single pot and pan has been vomited forth from the bowels of hell, aka my messy system of putting away kitchen utensils. 
• Another logistical challenge is going to people's houses. If I wind up being invited anywhere for the next month, I see myself showing up with a pot of vegan goodness and offending a lot of people. 
• If you undergo a lifestyle change that has a positive impact, it probably doesn't make a difference why you do it. However, the likelihood of that change having any stickiness is probably way lower if you're doing it to see if you can.   

So there. A vegan's life for me...for a month. Then I'll peace out, hopefully with an extra $50 in my pocket (I should've asked for more) and more produce worked into the diet.